Story+1988-09-15+Toronto,+ON

“Thanks (crowd cheers) hello, Toronto (crowd cheers) gonna have a little help on this song, I’d like to bring out the handsomest man in show business, poet, author, actor, musician, new best friend of mine, a man of unusual and perverse desires: Sting! (crowd cheers)…”
 * 15.09.88 Toronto, Canada, intro to “The River”**

“So how you doing out there tonight? (crowd cheers) did you enjoy the show tonight? (crowd cheers) when I was a kid, from rock’n’roll music I got a sense of so many different things…I got a sense of life and a sense of a possibility…got a sense of sex (crowd cheers) but most of all, I think, on those early rock’n’roll records that I bought I got a sense of freedom (crowd cheers) the singers, the singers always sounded so free…and I remember I’d run down and like, you know, come home with a little 99-cent record that my old man thought was junk and on that little record I heard a little three-minute burst of one small transcendent moment of freedom…and for me those records had a promise built into ‘em and they held out a big “What if?”…what if you could take those three minutes and stretch it into days…or stretch into…years…or what if you could stretch it from childhood into adulthood…what if you could find some way of taking those moments and spreading them out and giving them to the people that needed ‘em the most? (crowd cheers) and, uh…well, as you grow up, I think…if you wanna, I wanted to try to hold true to the promise of those records and Amnesty International…is an organization that’s out there that if you believe in the power of a single human spirit and if you believe that one man or one woman can still make a difference even in these cynical times (crowd cheers) Amnesty International gives you the opportunity to put your ideals in service of your friends and your neighbors and it allows you to put your arms around the whole world…and let that voice of freedom be heard just a little bit louder, make the world a little less oppressive and a little less hateful (crowd cheers) and let that freedom ring a little bit stronger all the way from my hometown to your hometown (crowd cheers)…”
 * 15.09.88 Toronto, Canada, intro to “My Hometown”**

“Here’s one for my old fans out there (crowd cheers)…”
 * 15.09.88 Toronto, Canada, intro to “Thunder Road”**

“Well, now sometimes I get feeling so lonely…that’s when I wanna reach out to somebody for a little help…can I find a partner out there?...I need a soul partner out there…I mean I need a soul partner out there…hey, come on, man, you look like (?)(Bruce picks a guy to dance with)… (…) A soul man (crowd cheers)…”
 * 15.09.88 Toronto, Canada, towards the end of “Dancing in the Dark”**

“Is there anybody alive out there tonight? (crowd cheers) is there anybody that can feel the living, breathing spirit down in their souls out there tonight? (crowd cheers) that’s good ‘cause I’ve got a question that I wanna ask you…what I want to know is…are you ready for a little religious inspiration? (crowd cheers) a little spiritual affirmation? (crowd cheers) a little sexual consummation? (crowd cheers) then come on and just raise your hand up high now… (…) Before I go, there’s one last thing I’ve got to know (crowd cheers) is there something you want? (crowd cheers) is there something you need? (crowd cheers) well, if there’s something that you want and there’s something that you need and if you wanna make a difference, you gotta show a little guts out there and just raise your hand…”
 * 15.09.88 Toronto, Canada, intro to “Raise Your Hand”**

//Compiled by Johanna Pirttijärvi//